Magnitude

Magnitude is an open source local inference engine built by Magnitude AI Inc. and backed by Y Combinator. It runs on the hardware you already have — Mac (Apple Silicon), NVIDIA GPUs, AMD GPUs, or CPU-only setups — and connects directly to the AI coding agents and harnesses developers already use. The project is licensed under Apache 2.0 and has accumulated over 4,300 GitHub stars since its creation in June 2026.

What It Is

Magnitude is a CLI-driven local model server that removes the friction of running LLMs on personal hardware. Instead of requiring users to manually benchmark models or configure inference settings, Magnitude profiles the host machine's chip, memory, and bandwidth, then ranks available models by speed, accuracy, intelligence, and memory fit. It downloads the selected model, applies hardware-specific tuning (including speculative decoding), and runs it as a background inference server. Agents and harnesses connect to it through a standard interface, with no API keys, token costs, or rate limits required.

How the Setup Workflow Works

Getting started requires a single npm command:

npm i -g @magnitudedev/cli && magnitude setup

The setup process profiles hardware, presents a ranked model list, downloads the chosen model, and wires the selected harness to it automatically. Alternatively, users can delegate the entire setup to their existing agent by pasting a short instruction — the agent installs the CLI, reads the onboarding docs, and configures itself.

• Models are loaded on demand when the agent needs them
• Models are unloaded automatically when idle or when memory pressure increases
• Agents can install or switch models at any time through the CLI

Harness and Agent Compatibility

Magnitude is designed to plug into the agent harnesses developers already use. The README and FAQ list explicit compatibility with: Pi, OpenCode, Hermes, OpenClaw, Codex, Claude Code, Oh My Pi, and Cline. During setup, the selected harness is automatically connected to the chosen local model, requiring no manual configuration after the initial run.

Privacy and Offline Operation

Once a model is downloaded, Magnitude operates entirely offline. Prompts, files, and model weights stay on the local machine and are never sent to external servers. This makes it suitable for workflows where data privacy or air-gapped operation is a requirement.

Update: CLI v0.0.14

The latest published release is @magnitudedev/cli@0.0.14, published on September 8, 2026. The repository was last pushed to on September 11, 2026, indicating active development. The project was created in June 2026 and reached over 4,300 stars within roughly three months, reflecting rapid early community adoption. The primary language is TypeScript.